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Home fire safety

Updated on April 29, 2020

Sign for fire prevention

Fires can burn down you houses very quickly, sometimes they could be so quick that people can get trapped and die, so we should be very careful and vigilant.
Fires can burn down you houses very quickly, sometimes they could be so quick that people can get trapped and die, so we should be very careful and vigilant. | Source

We need to prevent home fires

Welcome to our article (49), Home fire safety

Dear readers, let us talk about fire safety. You see, there are times in our lives, when something dreadful happens, and suddenly we become aware, that we could have prevented that dreadful happening, if we had been more careful.

Anyhow in this article, we are going to write a few things about fire safety, because we want to point out these dangers, and we are giving some advice, how to avoid some of these dangers.

The reason, we are writing about this fire safety today, it is because there has been a fire in the street where I live. The house was badly damaged by fire, but the occupants were lucky enough to run out of this house, even though they lost all their personal belongings. So, this makes me think about what could have been done to prevent this fire, and what should we do in case of fire. So, let us look at what can help us escape.

I believe that, we should make preventing home fires a priority, or any type of fire that puts in danger people and property. You see, we ask questions after tragic events have happened, when properties are burned down, and sometimes even loss of life happens. The sad and painful part is that it could have been prevented. Of course, these events become more painful and sad when people die; but these things happen, because most times people do not have a plan how to escape the fire, so, they can become trapped and perished. We are going to say something about how we can avoid being trapped in a house fire, if we plan these safety things properly.

Now what made me write this article here for the first time, it is that I have witnessed a few fires during my life, including the fire that has happened recently, there was another fire in the street where we live, in the street where we live there have been other fire years ago, and an old man died in the fire and it was very sad. What happened then made the owners demolish the house and for a few years we have this vacant block of land.

Anyhow, I am writing this article also to say my views, and in a small way say something that could help prevent a tragedy. So, if you read this entire article, you will see my point of views how to leave a way to escape in case of fire.

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Other fires

This is a sign for fire prevention, it shows how dangerous can be to light a fire in the open country, people should listen to the news specially if they live in the country, and they should know what to do if they need to light a fire outside.
This is a sign for fire prevention, it shows how dangerous can be to light a fire in the open country, people should listen to the news specially if they live in the country, and they should know what to do if they need to light a fire outside. | Source

Home fire safety and other things

We want to talk about home fire safety because, I believe that if we plan ahead tragedy can be avoided, you see, we must look after ourselves with all our personal faculties, because we are constantly exposed to many dangers including fire, some of these dangers may result in being hurt or even death. Therefore, we must look where these dangers can come from and plan to avoid them.

In our lives one of the main dangers is fire and water, in facts there are sayings in many languages; God help us from water and fire! You see these two elements that are so friendly when they are in the right proportion, they can be very dangerous and life threatening, so, we must guard ourselves from these dangerous two elements. Today while I am editing this article, I cannot help thinking about what has just happened in Arizona USA.

You see, while I was editing my article about fire safety, which I have written a while ago, I heard the sad news and I felt so sorry for the loss of life that this fire has caused; there are no words to describe the sad fact that 19 people have lost their lives, while they were doing their best to control this fire in the country of Arizona USA. Our thoughts of sympathy and our prayers go to their families and all those people that are closely involved.

This tragic event goes to prove that fires are very dangerous, even to the fire experts that have been trained to control the fires. So, we need to be very careful about fire safety throughout our lives. To give our readers some ideas of what this fire was like, I am going to post some links in this article, so that we will be able to have a record of what has happened, in the hope that we remember this tragedy and be more careful next time, if we have to light a fire in the open in the future, because they can become out of control.

Here-under are some links that tell us about this tragic fire:

01 Jul 2013

01 Jul 2013

I hope that these links above work for you, today and in the future, so that they would remind us of these sad facts about dangerous fires. Of course there are many other fire accidents happening in the world even as we speak, but it is not our intention to report them here, because we want to talk about fire safety and other dangers that we are exposed during our lives.

Other dangers from the fire

Other dangerous things that we should think about.

Anyhow, today there are a couple of dangers that come to our mind more often than the others, because they are very often on the news, apart from the fires in the houses, there can be other fires that can be prevented, one of these is when people go out drinking and then they drive when drunk, of course, very often on the way they cause an accident, they smash their car and perhaps get hurt; if they cause a major accident not only they can get hurt, but they can also cause damage, injury or death to other people and when the accident is severe the car can even catch fire and the occupants can die in the burning car, which is really a terrible way to die.

Now that I have written about the dangers of driving when drunk, because this seems to happen very often, and is on the news more than other dangerous behaviours; but there are other things that may endanger our lives, when we don’t pay much attention to what is happening around us, but the fire is one danger that we really should try to avoid, it is too dangerous.

Therefore, whatever we do, we should look after our own safety, it is not going to do us any good if something happens to us, and then, we try to blame somebody else for what has happened to us, we must do our best to prevent anything bad happening to us, we should be alert all the time if possible, and anything suspicious should be checked out as soon as possible. Of course, there are things that we cannot control, and we must be careful, when we come close to these dangers. but there are things that can be done to avoid these dangers, or at least minimize the loss of life that can occur.

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Timber house on fire

This timber house is burning fiercely, there is no way that this house could be saved now from the fire brigade now.
This timber house is burning fiercely, there is no way that this house could be saved now from the fire brigade now. | Source

Think fire safety first in wooden houses

In this article, we have mentioned many things about fire dangers, so, we want to talk about the importance of fire safety in wooden houses, because they can catch fire and burn quicker than houses built with bricks and cement. Therefore, we should ask ourselves, what should we do to minimize the danger for the house occupants? And, what else can be done to make it safer for the occupants to escape?

So, let me write about the extra dangers, that we as the occupant of these wooden houses face when they burn, because it is easier for them to burn down, and they burn down a lot quicker than a solid brick and concrete building. Now, we don’t know yet the reason, why this house that we are talking about has burned down, but it looks like there was an electrical fault that started the fire, but really nobody knows yet, if this was the reason. Anyhow this is the extra danger that we as the house occupant face, when we live in these wooden houses.

Therefore, at this point of time we may want to ask; what can be done to minimise this danger of fires? Now, this is what I am going to try to explain next, in my own personal ways; since I believe that I have one thing or two to say that can help, even if it is in a small way. First, let us be aware of the danger of fire in these wooden houses, since they burn very quickly, we need also plan what to do to avoid the risks involved, or what should we do to minimize the dangers?

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What should we do to minimize the danger?

How to minimize the fire danger.

Today we talk about that fire alarms save lives and in fact they do save lives; therefore, we must at least have a system for fire alarms, even if it consists of one single fire alarm: but that is not all, as there are a lot of other things that we can do, so, let us take a look at what can be done to prevent the building catching fire, but above all, let us find a way how to avoid loss of life, which is really a tragedy that can be prevented, if everything is planed the right way.

You see, there are many fire hazards in our houses these days, in fact, there are more fire hazards today than have been in the past. In the past the fire hazard was present only when we had to have a fire going, but we were there to mind the fire and use the fire to our advantage, and we were very much aware of its danger, because we used fire constantly. Today we don’t use the fire as much as we did in the past, therefore, our awareness of its dangers has become dull, we are less careful about fire hazards, but let us have a look where these fire dangers might be hidden.

Today when it is cold, instead of lighting a fire we have electric heaters to warm the place up, some of these heaters are a fire hazard, and we should not use those heater that can cause a fire, but if we have to use them, then we must monitor them constantly until the day that we can replace them with another type of heather that is safer. But as we know all electric devise can become a fire hazard, so, when we are not monitoring them, we must turn them off. For instance, when we go out, we should make sure that everything is turned off properly and above all when we go to bed, we must turn them off, just in case they can start a fire.

Now, what I have said above, is only a way for preventing the fire to start, and then burn the house down, but no matter how careful we are a fire can get started for many reasons, for instance when an electrical fault starts the fire; so, we have to be ready even for that and work out a way how to avoid this fire danger, even if we have to run away from the fire, if we are in danger, since this might be the only wise thing to do. But how can we do that easily and safely when we happen to be inside, and all the doors are locked?

Here I am writing this explanation, because I want to say that we need to set everything in a way, that will make it is easy for us to escape the fire, but not many people see this danger. Anyhow, I believe that sometimes people make mistakes when they want their houses safe from break in, because they overdo it, so, they can make their house safe from break in, but in doing so, they put their lives at risk from the fire, because they put safety bars to all windows and doors, when this is done it becomes hard to get in or out of the house.

This is a dangerous mistake, which can cost people lives and it can be prevented, if we plan it the right way in advance. Therefore, before we start putting safety bars to all windows and doors, we must use our common sense, and realize that if people cannot get in, people also cannot get out, I hope now you see what I mean, because this is where the danger of being trapped is.

This is what I want to say; whatever you do for safety reasons to prevent unwanted people coming into your house do not overdo it, because it is not worth the risk and you can lose your life. So, think how to set everything up that leaves you a way out in case of fire, and then you can go ahead and do what you must do, to make your house safe. I am sure that you are going to ask, how can we achieve that? So, let us see what else can be done for safety reasons.

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What else can we do?

To minimize the fire danger for the occupants it is not as easy as it sounds. Because every house is different, therefore, every house should be treated in a different way, so, there cannot be an easy answer that is the same for every house; therefore, everybody is going to work out what can be done in their own case, but let us suppose this scenario to start with:

So, let us assume that at your house you have a room that has two windows, you are worried that one day somebody will break in, or walk in without you even knowing it, because in summer, when it is hot the windows are open, and because they are low it is easy for a fit person to get in; so, you are thinking to set safety bars to secure your house.

Okay, it is a very good idea to put safety bars to the windows to secure your house from thieves, but by putting safety bars to all your windows and doors, not only it will stop people getting in, it will also stop people getting out, and if there is a fire you are trapped. Therefore, in my opinion you can set safety bars to one window, which you can keep it open all the time if you want, as nobody can get in your house since there are safety bars, the other window you may have to think of doing something else, perhaps you can put safety bars on inches that can manually be opened from the inside, or put in an extra bolts, or whatever it may be needed to make it secure, but whatever you do you should keep in mind that you must be able to open this window manually and easily from the inside.

When we talk about opening a window or door manually, we mean that you should not install any locks that require a key to open manually, everything must be there in place already and you can open this window easily just by using your hands, therefore, you can use this window or door to escape the fire. This also goes for all the rest of the house, you must leave a way out in each room if possible that you manually can open from the inside, and therefore, be able to escape the fire. I hope that I have explained myself clear enough about what I believe needs to be done.

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Anyhow, in case of fire, first put yourself out of danger, then call the emergency number of your country, if in Australia it is, 000, or call any other authority that can help.

Queensland Fire and Rescue Service

I believe we have said enough in this article, so, see you in our next article.

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